1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a card processing method and more particularly to a method for processing an information recording card such as a prepaid card or credit card comprising a magnetic recording portion and a rewritable display portion comprising a reversible thermosensitive recording material, which display portion is capable of repeatedly recording information in a visible manner to display recorded information and erasing recorded information therefrom.
2. Discussion of Background
A variety of cards such as a prepaid card and a credit card have appeared on the market and are used in many fields. Such cards have a rewritable recording portion based on the magnetic recording. At the beginning these cards did not have the function of displaying recorded information in a visible manner, for instance, the balance in the case of a prepaid card. Recently a card having a display portion of overwrite-type which comprises a thermosensitive recording material is being developed. Furthermore, attention has been paid to an information recording card comprising a display portion of a rewritable-type.
In order to provide the above-mentioned rewritable display portion in the card, as is known, a reversible thermosensitive recording material is most effectively used. The conventionally known reversible thermosensitive recording materials comprise a support and a reversible thermosensitive recording layer formed thereon, which comprises a matrix resin such as polyester and an organic low-molecular-weight material such as a higher alcohol or higher fatty acid dispersed in the resin, as disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Applications 54-119377 and 55-154198.
In the above-mentioned reversible thermosensitive recording materials, recording and erasure of information, that is, the formation and erasure of an image is achieved by utilizing the properties that the transparency of the reversible thermosensitive recording layer of the recording material varies with the temperature thereof. Likewise the conventional thermosensitive recording material of unreversible type, images can be formed in the reversible thermosensitive recording material by use of a thermal head or hot stamp, and moreover, images thus formed in the recording material can be erased therefrom with the application of heat thereto.
As disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application 1-181766, a card which comprises both a magnetic recording material and a reversible thermosensitive recording material is proposed. In this kind of card, the reversible thermosensitive recording material is used for a rewritable display portion of the card; and the magnetic recording material, for a recording portion of the card. The following four steps are carried out in processing this kind of card:
Step (a): reading recorded information in the magnetic recording portion PA0 Step (b): rewriting the recorded information in the magnetic recording portion PA0 Step (c): erasing recorded information from the rewritable display portion PA0 Step (d): writing information in the rewritable display portion
In a card processing apparatus designed to process a card comprising a magnetic recording portion and a display portion of an overwrite-type, for instance, used in an automatic ticket gate, first of all, the magnetic reading and writing operations in the magnetic recording portion represented by the above-mentioned steps (a) and (b) are conventionally carried out. According to the case, the step (a) may be further added to the above-mentioned sequence of (a) to (b) for verification. After the completion of magnetic reading and writing operations in the magnetic recording portion, the step (d) of writing information in the overwrite-type display portion is carried out. On the other hand, in the card processing apparatus for a card equipped with a rewritable display portion, the step (c) of erasing recorded information from the display portion is merely designed to be performed just before the step (d) of writing information in the rewritable display portion, as disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application 3-10394. Namely, the four steps are carried out in the order of (a)-(b)-(c)-(d) conventionally.
As compared with other recording methods such as magnetic recording, however, the thermosensitive recording method has the drawback that it takes more time to write information in a thermosensitive recording material. In addition, to erase information from a reversible thermosensitive recording material requires still more time. As a matter of course, the time required to completely process the card in the card processing apparatus is increased. The shorter the time required to process the card, the more convenient for the user of a card. In addition, it becomes difficult to use the conventional card comprising the magnetic recording material and the reversible thermosensitive recording material, for example, in the card processing apparatus for an automatic ticket gate because such apparatus needs rapid card processing speed.
Furthermore, when a printing layer or thermosensitive display layer is overlaid on the magnetic recording layer in the information recording card for the purpose of effectively utilizing the entire surface of the card, the distance between the magnetic recording layer and a magnetic head is substantially increased. As a result, the reliability in reading and rewriting the recorded information in the magnetic recording portion is decreased.